


Tempus Fugit

by donquichotte



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Fob-watches, NOT sherlock season 3 compliant, Open Ending, compliant-ish through DW series 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2134347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donquichotte/pseuds/donquichotte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is an odder man than Sherlock had first supposed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John dreams. He dreams of living in a forwards, sideways London, a broken world stitching itself together. He dreams of a father whose courage and wisdom are bywords. He dreams of a mother with stars in her soul and Time in her eyes. He dreams of a magic box ( _hush, hush, Johnny, the magic is a secret_ ) that holds a whole world inside. He dreams of monsters with robot voices and the battlefield in the streets.

He dreams of traveling, of leaving the world behind and just going and going and going and never running out of destinations. His mother is there, same as ever, but not his father (long dead: he was only human, after all). He dreams of the stars and of wonders and trouble and justice and danger.

 _You have to hide, John,_ his mother says, _far and long away. The Call to War is coming._

When he wakes, he is certain ~~(one of)~~ his heart ~~(s)~~ has stopped.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s late and the telly is on, though John’s falling asleep and Sherlock is only paying a modicum of attention. It’s some sci-fi thriller, with improbable aliens and the bare bones of a plot. The only even vaguely interesting element is the use of a time travel device. Oh, just imagine the puzzle of a crime committed by a  _time-traveler_ ! A perfect alibi… It’s an intriguing idea, but Sherlock will probably delete it soon – that kind of hypothetical situation does not merit disk space.

 

“Time-travel doesn’t work like that.” John declares sleepily, a slight frown on his face, as if this _bothers_ him.

“Time isn’t – It’s not _linear_. It’s…” John’s hands come up to form a sort of sphere, but then he blinks, coming awake, and drops them back to his lap with a chuckle. “What am I saying? What do I know?”

 

The obvious answer to that is ‘very little’, and Sherlock is infinitely more engrossed in the cold case spread out before him than in John’s opinions on the nature of time.

oO*Oo

Sherlock hasn’t slept – not an unusual state of affairs, but John does worry. He’s experimenting with certain compounds, however, and sleep is trivial compared to the microcosmic reactions whose effects he’s observing. Interestingly (if somewhat frustratingly), he’s not getting the results he wants, and he only realises that he’s asking the questions aloud when John wanders past on his way to the kitchen, hair ruffled, eyelids still drooping, clearly only recently awake, and groggily mumbles, “Y’need an‘rganic cat’lyst, anna more soluble reagent.” His voice clears as he wakes up, but Sherlock barely notices, because  _of course_ , obviously. That was what he needed, but – 

 

“How did you know that?” he demands.

 

John blinks. “I dunno, I did chemistry in uni – maybe something stuck?”

 

Sherlock is not satisfied, but his experiment beckons and he’s itching to try again. Properly this time. Where had he put the nitric acid? 

oO*Oo

Sherlock picks up the restaurant serviette scribbled over with absent-minded diagrams and mathematical formulas, interspersed with trailing bits of sentences and bizarre sketches. He had  _watched_ John write these things, but John denies any knowledge, claiming only that his subconscious must be a hoarder. Sherlock is unconvinced.

Some sort of deep hypnosis, Sherlock assumes, and possibly behavioural conditioning, but  _why_ ? What did John Watson know? Who didn’t want him to know it?

( ~~ And when, inevitably, it takes John away, how will Sherlock go back to solitude? ~~ )


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock Holmes is dead. 

There is a man, though, a man who used to be a consulting detective. This man wears names like costumes – easily cast on, and then abandoned, all lies. He hunts relentlessly, systematically,  _logically_ , too clever to leave behind any trace but the disappearance of his prey. He’s not a maniac, doesn’t take any pleasure from the act. It is a practicality, nothing more. ( _Oh, except for the thrill of the puzzle, the_ game. _The rush of you-can’t-catch-me. Bit not good?_ ~~ _Silence._ ~~ _)_

He used to be a consulting detective.

Now he is an assassin. ( _But they weren’t very nice, were they?_ )

.

.

.

.

.

And then they’re gone. All of Moriarty’s lynchpins.

The man’s mind stirs, casting off layers of indifference, of very deliberate ignorance. His awareness rises, reclaiming his identity. 

_Consulting detective – High-functioning sociopath – Genius – Freak – Extraordinary…quite extraordinary – It’s all fine. – No one could be that clever. You could. – You’re an idiot. – That thing you did, that you offered to do, that was…good. – I don’t have friends; I just have one._

Sherlock Holmes is alive.


	4. Chapter 4

There are strangers living in their flat. 

Sherlock had expected – no, not expected, nothing so concrete – had had some vague notion of coming home to John and resuming the comfortable pattern of their lives together, of slipping back into the cases and the banter and the push-pull of cohabitation. (There would be anger, of course, and apologies and why-didn’t-you-trust-me, but John would forgive him, eventually.)

But there’s a young couple ( _newly married, one of them works in a bookstore, the other in a cubicle_ ) inhabiting those rooms where John had laughed and eaten and slept and  _lived_ . Sherlock hates them. It’s irrational, and he knows it, but he  _hates_ them.

He hates himself, too, for daring to imagine a ‘happy ending’. Stupid.

oO*Oo

His phone rings two hours after his arrival. It’s a new mobile, and he’s given nobody the number. There’s only one person it could be, anyways.

“Mycroft.”

 

“ _It seems you’ve returned from beyond the grave.”_

 

Though he hadn’t explicitly informed Mycroft of his deception, he’d known better than to hope it fooled his brother. Still, Sherlock likes to think that Mycroft hadn’t known his exact location during those three years away.

 

“Where’s John?”

 

“ _Ah, well –”_

 

“Where. Is. He?”

 

“ _I’m afraid he disappeared in April. It was…exceedingly odd.”_

 

Disappeared. Sherlock is frozen, the phone clutched in his hand. His fall had been meant to keep John safe; had he missed something? Had someone known?

 

“ _Even I, with all my resources, could not locate Dr. Watson, nor ascertain what occurred. There are several…unresolved anomalies involved. I would suggest that you come to my office and examine what information I have gathered.”_

 

“I believed you would keep him _safe_!” Sherlock snarls into the speaker. “Have you fallen so far that you cannot keep track of _one_ man?” John was supposed to be waiting for him, to be here and whole at the end of all this. 

 

“ _I do wish you would wait to acquire the relevant data before casting aspersions.”_

 

Sherlock hangs up and stands for a moment, fighting to regain his habitual detachment.

_Dr. John Watson, missing for roughly two months (likely presumed dead), unspecified ‘anomalies’ involved._

Data. He needs more data! If he could just  _think_ – ! 

John isn’t dead, can’t be dead. Except, as Sherlock is all too aware, he  _can_ . ( _That’s what people DO!_ ) 

No. Stop. Emotions cloud his thinking; this is a case like any other. Ruthlessly, he locks the stupid, clawing panic down.

So, data. 

Whether Sherlock likes it or not, Mycroft’s resources are invaluable to his search. With so much at stake, he can swallow his resentment and play along.

oO*Oo

Many people have called Sherlock dramatic; few realise that Mycroft is similarly inclined. Oh if only they could see him now, with his crisp folders of information, his fancy television set, the sleek black remote. He’d probably had his people make an edited film of the CCTV footage.

He’s just loving this, isn’t he?

 

“April 5th,” Mycroft begins, taking the page from the top of the pile in front of him and passing it to Sherlock, “Doctor Watson received a cryptic email from his sister.”

In large, bold, letters, the message reads simply,

**Open the fob watch, John Watson.**

No words misspelled, properly punctuated. Little chance of composing and sending a lucid email if intoxicated. Ergo, she wasn’t drunk. Furthermore, Harry’s comments on John’s blog lack this attention to the conventions of language, so this message is important for some reason. ( _Fob watch,_ he thinks, running through his mental inventory of John’s belongings,  _ah! Silver, inscribed, non-functional – presumably kept out of sentiment._ )

Mycroft flicks a button and the screen on the wall flickers to life, hosting a grainy, greyscale video of John. 

It’s Sherlock’s first glimpse of him in three years. Staring at the enlarged pixels, he tries to make out John’s features, tries to see the lines around his eyes and the habitual upward twist of his lips. He can’t and it’s maddening.

On screen, John stands up from behind his laptop and climbs the stairs (slight trace of a limp), the angle shifts and John enters his room, another shift and he’s rooting through the bag he keeps under the bed. Evidently, he finds what he’s looking for and stands, turning the object (presumably the watch; difficult to say from the image) over in his hands. His fingers move to prise it open – 

– and the picture whites out.

 

“All the cameras I had installed in Baker Street experienced similar…difficulties at that precise moment.” Mycroft informs him while the screen stays white. “And my specialists are at a loss as to why.

“We next picked him up leaving the flat half an hour later.” 

He turns back to the screen as it comes to life again (and isn’t it just like him to have scripted in his narration?)

 

The picture now shows John walking out the door, down the pavement and hailing a cab. He’s not limping at all. More telling: his posture, while alert and balanced, lacks its usual military precision. The John he knew would never have been able to walk like that, not without extensive coaching.

 

“He proceeded to Hyde Park, where we lost sight of him. He didn’t exit the park. We never recovered a body, nor found evidence of any foul play, and – barring his mobile, his wallet and the clothes he was wearing – his belongings were left in the flat.”

The screen freezes on a frame of John, mid-stride, his arms swinging.

 

Mycroft considers his brother for a moment, then hands him a thick sheaf of papers.

Flicking through them, Sherlock sees school records, medical records, bank statements, marriage certificates – a varied assortment of the paperwork that goes into maintaining a life – going back decades.

 

“That is the information I acquired about John Watson’s family when he moved into 221B – it is, as you see, quite comprehensive, and all perfectly in order.

“When I attempted to contact Ms. Harriet Watson in April, I found nothing. There was no trace of her in any system. A little digging, and this,” he hands Sherlock a much thinner pile, “is all I managed to procure.”

 

The pages contain records of John’s schooling, his financials, his military service, his medical history. Frowning, Sherlock checks the dates: there is nothing from before 1991, when John opened a bank account and applied to the University of London. And nothing pertaining to any other member of the Watson family.

 

“Yes,” Mycroft says softly, “It is odd, isn’t it?

“I made inquiries, of course. Discreetly. According to all my sources, John Watson was never born.”

 

“Don’t be absurd.”

 

“I am perfectly serious, Sherlock. There is no record remaining of his family, nor of his childhood – not in any database, nor even in anybody’s recollection.”

 

“People,” Sherlock sniffs, “do not spontaneously appear. Nor disappear. I assume you know that John was under some kind of hypnosis.” 

Sherlock  _hopes_ for surprise, but gets only what he expected.

 

“I suspected, certainly, but the clues seemed to surface in moments of relaxation – moments to which I was not often witness,” Mycroft adds, with a self-deprecating twitch of his lips. “The good doctor was not often…comfortable in my presence.”

 

“Nobody is.”

 

“Even allowing that the watch was some kind of trigger to break the hypnosis, we are left with several questions unanswered. It should have been impossible to _create_ those records so convincingly, much less utterly remove them decades later. My specialists assure me that it is impossible, and yet… here we are. Most worrying; I really ought to know of such advancements in the field. In the wrong hands…” He makes a disapproving _tsk_ with his teeth and tongue.

 

“I don’t care about your little _games_ , Mycroft;I want to find John.”

 

“Oh, I assure you, Sherlock, I have shared all I know on the subject. I have no more information.”

 

Sherlock believes this; he suspects (and it seems confirmed by his brother’s slight grimace) that admitting to ignorance causes Mycroft  _physical pain_ . In any case, it appears his brother’s current usefulness has been exhausted – he always was rubbish at the legwork.

“Send me everything; I’ll want to review it.”

Donning his coat, he sweeps out.


	5. Chapter 5

There’s a car waiting to take him to his destination. He ignores it, of course – he won’t take Mycroft’s condescension – but the door swings open to reveal Mycroft’s assistant, as engrossed in her mobile as ever.

“I have some information for you.”

Suspicious, but information is his weak spot. He slides into the car. She reaches over and closes the door. The car starts moving.

“Why not my brother?”

“Oh, he’s not allowed to know. Not yet, anyways. We have a schedule, you know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” She flashes him a cheerful smile, then returns her gaze to the little screen. After so many years with Mycroft, she is nearly impossible to read.

“You need to check into this hotel tonight.” She hands him a piece of paper, torn out of a small notebook. It’s unstained and utterly non-descript. There is an address scribbled on, in a neat feminine hand he assumes is hers.

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“A concerned party.”

“I’ll need more than that.”

“Will you?”

Damn her, and her ‘concerned party’. Someone knows him well – knows that he’s as addicted to puzzles and mysteries as he ever was to cocaine. He won’t call the police, nor return to Mycroft, and they’re counting on that.

“Don’t worry; I have a letter for you. From a friend.”

Seeing John’s distinctive, left-handed print, Sherlock snatches the proffered envelope from her manicured fingers. The writing, centred and written in black ballpoint, reads:  _SHERLOCK HOLMES_ . The envelope is sturdy, serviceable, the type that could be bought anywhere. It’s sealed closed, and shows no signs of tampering. Weight consistent with a letter. Smells of the assistant’s (subtle floral) perfume. 

Careful to avoid ripping the paper overmuch, he opens it and pulls out a letter, again in John’s neat handwriting, same black ballpoint, the A4-sized printer paper as untraceable as the envelope.

He reads through the words quickly. 

_Sherlock,_

_You are a bastard, and I’m bloody furious with you._

_That being said, I’m glad you’re not dead, and I_ _ almost _ _understand your reasons. You’re still a bastard, and an idiot, but you (probably) won’t get a punch to the face when I see you next. (And I maintain that I’m a better actor than you give me credit for.)_

_Anyways, Anthea (or whatever Mycroft’s assistant is calling herself today) is more or less an ally. If I thought there were any chance of it happening, I’d warn you not to trust her implicitly, but, well…you’re you. So._

_You_ _ can _ _trust what (little, if I know her at all) information she gives you to be technically correct, if not as complete or straightforward as it could be._

_I promise, insofar as it is in my power, that no harm will come to you as the result of her instructions._

_What you do is, of course, completely your choice. (I know you, though, and I know you can’t leave anything alone.)_

_Hope to see you soon,_

_Cheers,_

_John_

_P.S. I missed you, you prick._

Sherlock’s brain is a marvel, capable of lightening fast observation and reasoning. It’s also more than capable of intense multi-tasking. He finds this skill necessary when he reaches the bottom of the page. 

While, distantly, he is aware of observing, cataloguing and deducing, his attention is claimed by the five words of the post script.

It’s a throw-away line, but Sherlock finds his eyes returning to it. There’s no question that it’s sincere, of course (yes, even the insult), but John couldn’t have known how Sherlock’s mind would hungrily seize the words and refuse to give them up.  _I missed you._ People don’t  _miss_ Sherlock – they miss his skills and his insight, but not  _him_ . 

John had missed him. 

The thought is pleasing. He likes the feeling of being valued – no, of  _John_ , specifically, valuing him – and he is selfish enough to be glad that John suffered in his absence. Which leads his thoughts back to rectifying the troubling matter of their separation. Leaving the sentimental bit of himself to marvel over the wonder of ‘ _I missed you’_ , he wrenches his focus over to the busy workings of his more rational side.

The handwriting and the tone say that the letter is indeed from John and written of his own free will. Letter’s existence implies that (at some time a maximum of four months ago) John had known that Sherlock was alive, and that he would be returning. 

Given John’s mourning of him ( _just one more miracle),_ the man had initially believed the lie. The letter indicates that John was experiencing an immediate emotional reaction to the deception while writing it. That places John’s epiphany sometime in the last, oh, five months, roughly (it’s likely that’s a gross overstatement – Sherlock wants to place the moment at the opening of an old fob watch, but he can’t be entirely certain). 

It is remotely possible that Molly had let something slip, but Sherlock doubts it – far more likely that she would have done so in the immediate aftermath of his ‘death’. 

If Mycroft’s PA is involved, then it’s possible that she told him.

In sum: conspiracy, aims unknown (schedule?), with MH’s assistant a member/affiliate (right under MH’s fat nose!). John (peripherally/centrally involved) under hypnosis, mission unknown (involving Sherlock?). Hypnosis appears removed (but personality intact?) – John’s location unknown (in contact with PA), may be present at hotel rendez-vous.

What to make of the hotel business? It’s a decent hotel but not fancy: the sort an experienced, money-smart traveler would use.

There is, of course, no question as to whether he’ll go.

Only a few seconds have passed since he finished reading. He looks up.

“I’ll be there,” he tells the assistant.

“I know,” she says, and opens the car door.

oO*Oo

He checks into the hotel at one. It is, of course, horrifyingly dull, right down to the insipid faux-watercolour paintings on the walls, but it is warm, dry and private; three things he’d currently be hard pressed to find in the outside world.

He lies down on top of the thin, pastel-blue quilt and stares at the ceiling, following half-spun trails of ideas at breakneck speeds, jumping from query to response like they were rooftops. It’s utterly consuming, this mind of his. Utterly consuming and utterly draining.

Quite accidentally, midway through a convoluted chain of reasoning involving Heathrow airport, the disappearance of a treasured pet iguana and the laundering of thousands of pounds, Sherlock slips into exhausted sleep.

He dreams of playing the violin in an empty cathedral.


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock wakes, suddenly, to a bizarre grinding sound and sits up quickly (and  _this_ , this groggy confusion right here is everything he hates about sleeping). Blinking, Sherlock clears his vision in time to see a polished faux-oak wardrobe ( _two metres tall, one metre wide; pristine condition_ ) materialise in a corner of the room. Clearly, he has not woken at all, but has instead somehow relapsed into non-lucid dreaming.

This belief is not countered in the slightest when the doors swing open and John steps out, smiling affably. 

Regardless, Sherlock scrambles to his feet and lunges forward to stand breathlessly in front of the apparition.

This John looks younger; his wrinkles are less deeply etched, his hair is less grey and his posture is balanced and coiled, poised in the way of a man utterly confident in his body. Not the stance of a man of John’s age and injury. But very much the stance of a fighter, despite the lack of military bearing. There are traces of grease on his hands and clothing, and tiny singe marks peppered over, too. Mechanical work of some kind.

Quite abruptly, Sherlock finds himself with an armful of John, which cuts short his examination. The embrace, while enjoyable, is not quite how Sherlock remembers the few hugs they’d shared before: John’s body temperature is at least five degrees cooler, for one. For another, he can feel a strange doubled beat against his chest, as if John has two hearts. ( ~~ _Oh, of course, he’s keeping mine for me._ ~~ )

Sherlock begins to suspect that he is awake, after all. If he were to dream about John, he’d at least do it accurately.

“Sorry, I’ll let go in a moment,” John sighs against Sherlock’s neck, sending a prickle of warmth through the area.

“…You don’t have to.”

They remain like that a few seconds longer before John draws back to meet Sherlock’s eyes and there’s something in his gaze. Something old and…dangerous?

“Want to come in?” John gestures at the door behind him.

Sherlock stares. The room he can see through the door frame is easily bigger than the hotel room He moves his head and, no, it’s not an impressively realistic  _trompe-l’œil._ Which means that it’s utterly impossible. 

Fantastic.

He follows John inside and stares some more. They’re standing in a large, perfectly hexagonal room ( _faces approximately ten metres long_ ) with a ceiling so high that it fades into obscurity. The walls are a smooth, soothing blue and the floor appears to be glossy hardwood ( _unscratched_ :  _new? Wood unidentifiable._ ), with numerous trap doors ( _storage?_ ). In the exact centre of the room, there is a sort of console that doubles as the primary observable light source. Another, smaller, perfect hexagon is delineated by blue-cushioned sofas, with staircases curving up from its corners to a balcony. He can see a few piles of machine parts scattered about in the empty spaces (presumably John’s work). It’s all very nearly unbelievable.

Struggling to make his mind accept the evidence before his eyes, Sherlock steps forward. When John makes no protest, he advances to observe the focal point of the room: the console.

It, too, is hexagonal, with a round column rising from its centre. The faces are covered with buttons, levers and screens, some bearing handwritten labels ( _sample: ‘exo-perpetual thermic regulator’, ‘only on Sundays’, ‘untitled invention - untested’._ )

Preliminary examination completed, Sherlock turns back to where John is standing. He grapples with the conclusion he’s drawn.

“This isn’t technology available anywhere on Earth.”

“No.”

“John, I don’t understand.” It’s an admission, nearly a plea, coming from him.

John sits on one of the sofas and leans forward, his expression earnest.

“There’s a lot I have to tell you, and most of it is going to sound completely impossible –”

“You just stepped out of a wardrobe that appeared in my hotel room, you appear to have gained a second heart and I am standing in a room that cannot, by my rules, exist. I clearly need to re-evaluate my definition of ‘impossible’.”

“‘Whatever remains must be the truth’?” John quotes, grinning, “I knew you’d either be the easiest person to convince, or the hardest.

“So, here goes: I was born in the year 2160, and I’m not human.” He pauses, waiting for a response.

There are a number of things in that sentence that Sherlock struggles with.

He sits down, and, as if to double-check, he brings up his hands so that one rests over either side of John’s chest and feels the steady  _thu-thump_ of the valves closing under both palms. 

“Are you implying you’re an alien?”

“Well, not _technically_ , seeing as I was born on Earth, and my father was human. But genetically, yes, I’m an alien.”

“And time travel is possible.”

“Yep, bit of a speciality of my people.” Something dark crosses his face. “Or it was. We’re practically extinct, now.”

“Tell me.” Sherlock demands.

oO*Oo

So John tells him. 

He starts with his great-grandfather, who ran away to have adventures, bringing his young granddaughter along. 

At this point, Sherlock wants to make a far more thorough study of the controls, but John grabs his wrist.

“Later, okay? It’s hard enough to try and tell this story without interruptions.”

Sherlock casts a lingering glance over to the console, but he wants to hear this story. 

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise, but you’ll have to be _careful_ with her. Anyways, eventually, Mum and the Doctor landed on Earth in 2159 and found it overrun by some of the nastiest creatures ever to exist: the Daleks.”

Continuing, John tells of the Daleks’ defeat, and his mother’s decision to stay behind with one of the freedom fighters. He speaks of being born into the aftermath of an alien invasion, of growing up in world that was only just learning to stand on its own again.

“When the Daleks were overthrown, I guess everyone thought things would just go back to normal. My father wanted to be a farmer.” He snorts. “It wasn’t that simple, of course. There was no industry and no government. Gangs of looters were everywhere, and everyone was competing for shelter and food and goods. And then, of course, the odd Dalek would turn up every so often.

“Dad was one of leaders who stepped up and started to organise work parties. Mum was one of the best scientists they had, so she helped out on that front. They got the factories running again, restored the power and running water. It was still years before there was anything even close to a cohesive community, and by the time Dad died, we’d only reclaimed about a third of the city.

“It was hard, after that, because Mum only looked a few years older, though decades had passed, and I’d been a teenager for sixty years –”

Sherlock had been listening attentively, filing his questions away for later, but this information…

“How old are you?” he blurts out.

“Er, around two hundred years,” John says awkwardly.

“Oh.” All things being equal, John will likely outlive him. “What’s the life expectancy for your species?”

“Several millennia, barring exceptional circumstances.”

“Oh.” 

“Do you want me to go on?”

“Yes.” Of course he does – he can’t _deduce_ all this. He has no frame of reference, no way to correctly interpret the clues. He needs more _data_.

“All right. Mum had requisitioned a TARDIS when I was born, so once Dad passed we returned to Gallifrey so I could look into the Schism – that’s a sort of initiation rite, by the way. I was late for it, but I had the right, if I wanted to.” Lost in the memory, John’s eyes go deep and distant and Sherlock can almost see…something, something _alien_. It’s glorious.

“We swanned off right after, though.” John comes back to himself with a mischievous smirk. “I don’t think the Council was best pleased by that.

“We traveled around after that, exploring, getting into trouble, getting out of trouble. And running. Lots and lots of running.

“And then there was a War. Mum knew it was coming – we can do that, sometimes; see the future, I mean –”

“You _can_?!” This is unexpected, and marvelous. John can _see the future_ , which is brilliant, even if it’s as limited as John is implying.

“Sort of. It’s more like seeing time, and it’s pretty erratic, but the War was really big, temporally speaking. She knew it was going to be a massacre. She begged me to hide, so I could avoid the Call. I agreed, eventually.

“We have this device that can rewrite genetics, and implant a false back-story, so I became human John Watson, orphaned and estranged from his sister. Mum gave me her TARDIS, and she – the TARDIS, I mean – created false records, and invented a family. And I became a doctor, and went to war, after all.”

“The fob watch erased the false memories. The email was sent by the ‘TARDIS’.” Sherlock says, realising.

“Right. The watch is a sort of quick release: painful as hell, but very fast.”

“So you remembered, and – oh. That ‘seeing time’, that’s how you knew I was alive, and coming back.”

“Catch on quickly, you do.” John says fondly. Sherlock has missed John’s approval and affection.

“Mycroft’s assistant…is she also an alien? Or part of an organisation dealing with aliens?”

“First one. She’s a representative of the Shadow Proclamation – that’s a sort of intergalactic peace-keeping society. Her job is to keep Mycroft unaware of the alien presence on Earth for the time being. No mean feat, I tell you.”

“What’s dangerous about Mycroft knowing about aliens?”

“Um, have you _met_ your brother?”

“ _John._ ”

“It has to do with temporal stability. The Earth doesn’t make official contact for decades, and Mycroft knowing would mess that up.”

“What about me? Why don’t I know?”

“‘Spectacularly ignorant’?” John hazards. “Seriously, though. The Sycorax? The giant Christams Death Star? The space Titanic? The twenty-seven planets?”

Sherlock stares, several puzzling things falling into place.

“I...had assumed those were hallucinations.”

John puts the pieces together quickly, and normally Sherlock loves seeing the light flick on behind John’s eyes, but this time the affection is sullied by embarrassment and an odd sort of guilt.

In the ensuing silence, Sherlock can almost  _hear_ John refusing to be judgmental and patronising, and, somehow, that makes him feel worse than all of the lectures and sermons that have come before. But then, he’d actually been  _embarrassed_ that one drugs bust, when John had been so incredulous.

“How many of your people survived the War?” As a subject change, it’s neither subtle nor elegant.

Immediately, John’s face goes dark and solemn. “One. My great-grandfather ended it by destroying both sides and Time-Locking the whole event. There  _may_ be a few others who hid like I did, but to all intents and purposes, there are only two Time Lords left in existence.”

“I’m…sorry.” It comes out awkwardly ( ~~because~~ ) but it’s sincere, for once. As a general rule, Sherlock doesn’t empathise, but he had his exceptions, and John tops the short list. 

And Sherlock understands loneliness.

“Thank you. 

“They were never really _my_ people, you know. I lost my mum, yeah, but not my whole world. And still…” He trails off wistfully.

“…Is your species _really_ ‘Time Lord’?” Sherlock knows he’s being insensitive, but he’s curious. 

The sorrow in John’s eyes eases a little and he cracks a rueful smile.

“Yes, unfortunately. It’s slightly less pompous in Gallifreyan, but ‘Time Lord’ is the best English equivalent.”

“There has to be a scientific name.”

“Don’t need them in Gallifreyan; it’s a perfectly precise language. It needs to be to deal with multi-dimensional concepts.”

The idea of absolute precision appeals immensely to Sherlock.

“Can you teach me?”

“I could try. If any human could learn it, it would be you.”

“Good.” Sherlock sighs happily; John has as good as promised to stay with him, to _teach_ him. While he is largely self-taught, Sherlock actually prefers learning from people (followed, of course, by experimentation) – he’s just always had trouble finding tolerable and tolerant teachers.

Back to business.

“The timing, John. Why did you need to remember? Why then?”

“Dunno, unless it had something to do with your return. Maybe I’m meant to get your help.”

John grins at him and Sherlock feels something very like hope invade his chest. He’d been resolutely  _not_ wondering how long it would be before John left him behind. Because John is no longer dependant on Sherlock for brilliance, or danger, or…anything. And, yes, John’s fond of him, but how far would that go? But now,  _now_ John had implied… 

“We have a case already?”

“Of sorts, I suppose. Okay, this’ll take some explaining: see, on April 22nd 2011, my great-grandfather died. Had to die. Except he didn’t.” 

“Had to die?”

“There are certain fixed points in Time. Things that _have_ to happen. It’s a bit of a misnomer, really though, because Time can be rewritten, to a point. It’s like…it’s like an implication: A implies B. But if A happens, and someone intervenes and prevents B, then you’ve got a fundamental contradiction and Time tears itself apart. And the Doctor’s death is fixed.”

“But he escaped it.”

“Yes. And, you know what? A certain brilliant consulting detective I know pulled something of the same trick a while back.” 

“So the case is to figure out how he _didn’t_ die? Not my usual area.”

“You’ll be coming, then?”

“Don’t be dull.”


	7. Chapter 7

John responds by bounding over to the console where he pushes buttons and flips levers seemingly at random. With the same grinding sound that had woken Sherlock earlier, the central column begins to move vertically ( _possible phallic symbolism?)_. A few moments later, the noise stops and the column stills.

This must be the transportation mechanism, though surely the noise is unnecessary.

“Where are we?” A thought occurs. “And when?” he adds.

“You’re brilliant, you know. Most people take a lot more convincing. We’re still in linear time, still in London, just took a short hop to Baker Street. Thought we should pick up a few of your old things.”

John must have stored them with Mrs. Hudson, who would have kept them even after John’s disappearance. Sentiment, of course, but he can’t muster the usual scorn.

It does occur to him that this isn’t the best use of their time, but then he remembers that this is a time machine. How very useful.

John waves him towards the doors.

Though _logically_ , given the evidence before him, Sherlock accepts that it is possible for them to have moved several kilometres, his mind is trying to reject it. He opens the door cautiously, feeling an odd sweep of near-vertigo as he is presented with a scene that is decidedly _not_ the hotel room he’d vacated. It appears, in fact, to be 221C, still untenanted.

Stacked against one wall are two large cardboard boxes, taped closed, with SH’s things – 2011scrawled across in thick black marker.

“Got rid of most of it after the first year,” John says quietly from behind him, “but couldn’t bear to part with everything. Sentiment, I know. Go on.”

Eager to see which of his personal effects John had seen fit to preserve ( _the violin,_ he thinks _. Maybe the skull? What else?_ ), Sherlock steps forward, lifts down the topmost box and peels the tape off so he can open it.

The skull grins up at him from on top of a mass of bubble-wrapped bundles, which on further examination turn out to be the pieces of his chemistry set. He’s glad; most of that set has been with him for over a decade and, much as he’d like to deny it, he’s gotten attached to it.

The second box contains his violin, as well a number of trinkets from cases he’d been on with John and a few of his more favoured items of clothing. Ignoring the trinkets (clearly kept more for John’s sake than Sherlock’s), he opens the instrument case with fingers that want to shake. He hasn’t touched a violin in three years, but oh, it’s as beautiful as he remembers. His violin, _his_ violin. One of the very few material things he can say he loves.

Feeling an unaccustomed tightness in his throat, Sherlock turns to look at John.

And blinks.

John (smiling affectionately) is now standing in front of a tall cardboard box. Oh.

“Camouflage capabilities, I see.”

“You didn’t think I really traveled around in a wardrobe, did you?”

“It did seem unlikely, but not unduly so, given the context.”

“…Fair point.”

Deciding that most of his old belongings can remain in Mrs. Hudson’s capable hands, Sherlock elects take only the skull, his violin and the clothes from among the items.

After replacing the boxes, the two men re-enter the TARDIS and stand looking at each other in the console room.

When Sherlock was three, Mycroft had taken him to the library for the first time and, after an instant of staring in thrilled amazement, he’d burst in to helpless tears because there was _so much_ to learn and see and he couldn’t decide where to start.

He feels a bit like that now (though, happily, he’s gained enough emotional maturity that he’s in no danger of succumbing to tears).

He wants to examine the machine, the TARDIS (John consistently anthropomorphises and calls it ‘her’ and ‘Pet’). He wants to open every one of the cabinets and cupboards and pull out the gadgets. He wants to press every button on the console, pull every lever. He wants to map all the corridors that curve away from the console room.

He wants to learn John, wants to demand skin cells, and hair and sweat and blood and everything and study it under a microscope until he can see what it is that makes John _different_ . He wants to test the limits of the binary vascular system. He wants to make John see the future ( ~~_do you see me, with you?_ ~~ ).

And more, always more. He wants to ask and ask until John goes hoarse from speaking, until he has no more knowledge to share and Sherlock is glutted with information.

“Where do we start?” he asks instead. It’s a role reversal of sorts, this ‘case’. John is the one with the information, the knowledge, the intuition, and Sherlock is the one who, while clever in his own right, can’t do much more than ask the right questions. Not yet, anyways.

“Well, I’ve been building something to help us track down the Doctor. I should be able to finish it in a few hours. I could show you the library? Or you could watch? Whatever you want, really.”

While the library is tempting, the lure of John doing something potentially interesting is far stronger.

“I’ll stay.”

They sit on the floor, surrounded by bits of machinery, John working with an all-in-one handheld device that is, apparently, ‘sonic’ and answering Sherlock’s many questions.

With John’s willing explanations and his own keen observational skills, the detective finds himself able to assist a little, but he has no real grasp on the concepts. It is a new feeling for him. Rather like, he supposes, if he had attended a uni course on organic chemistry when he was still experimenting with baking soda and vinegar.

Some time later, John declares the hardware complete and plugs what now looks very like an iPad, albeit with a multitude of brightly coloured buttons, into the console.

“This is going to be boring for you,” he says distractedly, “Just programming. Why don’t you go find some clean clothes for yourself? You’ll find whatever you need in the wardrobe room; it’s off that way at the moment. The door is blue.”

Sherlock is reminded that he’s been wearing these (boringly average and utterly inadequate) garments for upwards of twelve hours.

And watching someone program _is_ boring.

From the pile of clothes he’d recovered from 221C, he grabs his purple shirt and wanders off in the direction John indicated, wondering about the ‘off that way _at the moment_ ’. He concludes that it may be possible to change the layout of the ship.

oO*Oo

Despite John’s somewhat vague instructions, Sherlock locates the wardrobe room with no difficulty. He is greeted by the sight of racks upon racks of clothes. Most of them absurd.

A little hunting proves fruitful, however, and he unearths a suit in exactly his size ( _odd_ , he thinks, _in a ship formerly inhabited by John and his mother_ ). A few minutes more and he has socks and even pants that are exactly what he would have bought himself, if not better.

And then he finds the grail.

His coat.

Oh, it’s not _actually_ his coat ( _no acid stain on right sleeve, nor the hand-stitched repairs_ ), but it’s the exact same model. The ridiculously expensive coat he’d bought just because he could, once he got off the drugs and regained access to his funds.

Slipping it on over the suit, he is surprised by how comforting he finds its familiar weight. A flash of blue catches his eye and he smiles as he ties the scarf around his neck.

It’s almost as if he never died.

oO*Oo

He wanders back into the console room to find John still typing furiously.

“Nice to see you looking more yourself,” John says, sparing a glance to Sherlock.

“Why on Earth did you have clothing in my size?”

“The TARDIS wardrobes are like that. Clothes for every and any purpose. It’s automatic.”

“How?”

“Block transfer equations. Converting energy into matter. Clothes are mostly easy.”

“Oh.” He’d never put much stock in Clarke’s Third Law, but he was beginning to see how one species’ science could seem like another’s magic.

Leaving John to his programming, Sherlock begins tuning his violin. When that’s done he plays, properly plays, ignoring the pain where his calluses have vanished. He’s not really aware of what he’s playing; bits of Bach, Mendelssohn, Ravel. Mozart, maybe, and Strauss. Pieced together seamlessly by improvised cadenzas. Just music, the vibration of strings, thought into sound.

When he finally lets the notes die away, his fingertips are raw and John is sitting watching, an amazed smile on his face.

“That was gorgeous.”

Tight-throated, Sherlock doesn’t answer, just loosens his bow and put the instrument carefully back in its case.

“I finished,” says John unnecessarily when Sherlock turns back. “A home-made ‘Doctor-stalker’.”

“Your titles still need work.”

“Shut up, you.”

Sherlock hauls himself upright.

“Time to track him down?”

“It’s still compiling. We’ve got another, oh, five hours before we can start using it. What do you want to do?”

What _does_ he want to do?

“John,” Sherlock says, “may I experiment on you?”

John is quiet for a tense moment, and Sherlock would worry, but John _knows_ him. Sherlock is intrigued and Sherlock is _asking permission_ . ( _Please let him understand_.)

“Yes.” John says, finally. “ _But,_ I have complete control. Every experiment will be with my full knowledge and if I say stop, you _do not_ ignore me, and you _do not_ brush it off. You stop. Do you understand?”

“ _Yes_. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me on purpose,” John corrects gently.

He’s right, and Sherlock knows it. In this situation, where Sherlock has only a very limited understanding of John’s physiology, even a seemingly benign experiment could be damaging.

“Biological samples?” he asks hopefully.

John smiles. “Sure, let’s go to the medbay.”

Sherlock thinks that this is probably what being in love is like.


	8. Chapter 8

After drawing a blood sample, Sherlock gets to the real work; the machines are beautifully efficient, but there’s still a significant wait for the results of certain analyses. While waiting for the results of each battery of tests, Sherlock has John display other abilities. Among other things, the doctor holds his breath for nearly ten minutes with no apparent difficulty, and demonstrates a rather incredible aptitude for ventriloquism.

The binary vascular system is a thing of beauty, a pinnacle of efficiency and functionality and Sherlock spends over an hour poring over the scans, tracing the major veins and arteries.

Unsurprisingly, John’s cell structure is unlike anything Sherlock’s ever seen. Oh, the samples are recognisably animal, and the blood is actually quite similar to human blood in composition, but there are cells whose purpose elude him (John says something about absorbing radiation when asked), and some of the test results are utterly baffling ( _presence of non-terrestrial elements?_ ) and when, gleefully, Sherlock uses the highly advanced microscope in the medbay to actually _look_ at John’s DNA, the iconic double helix is absent. The structure is incredibly complex, allowing for almost infinite variation.

“Hmm, yes.” John responds when Sherlock remarks on it, “Time Lords had no real concept of incest, you know, seeing as inbreeding was never an issue.”

“So a small genetic pool could potentially repopulate the species.” So if John and his great-grandfather were to sire children of opposite genders… Hmm.

“I assume, given your existence, that the mechanics of conception and pregnancy are similar between our species?”

“Yes, though children hadn’t been properly ‘born’ on Gallifrey for at least a millennium. Genetic engineering was considered far more civilised.”

Sherlock turns back to the screen, where the magnified genetic material is displayed. “Why so much genetic diversity, though? Was the population so small?”

“Not really; the enormous gene pool is actually a secondary advantage to a much rarer trait. See, when a Time Lord dies, he can undergo a process we call ‘regeneration’. It’s basically a restart, and it’s pretty much a genetic rewrite; every cell in the body is rewritten by drawing on the recessives. The memories remain intact, and the base personality, generally, but appearance and mannerisms can change completely.”

Sherlock tries to imagine John as somebody who doesn’t tilt his head _just so_ when confused, who takes sugar in his tea, who hasn’t adopted ‘it’s all fine’ as a motto, who can lie worth a damn. He tries to imagine a John whose hair isn’t that greying dishwater blonde, whose eyes aren’t blue and brown all at once, a John who doesn’t wear bravery as a scar on his shoulder. ( ~~_A John who doesn’t love him_ ~~ _._ )

He fails utterly.

It’s fascinating of course, the idea of a total rejuvenation, but he can’t quite dismiss his discomfort at the thought of facing a John that he doesn’t recognise.

Apparently reading some of Sherlock’s horror at the thought from his face, John reaches out to touch his shoulder.

“Hey now, I’ve no plans in that way; I like who I am and I should have another couple centuries before this body gets too old. Besides, I told you the big things stay the same, didn’t I? Trust me, Sherlock, you’re a big thing.”

As usual, John senses his insecurity and addresses it. He likes being ‘a big thing’ to John Watson.

A thought occurs to him.

“Your name, is it actually John Watson?”

“My parents named me John Hamish Campbell, but it doesn’t bother me to be John Watson.”

“Bit of a rubbish name for an alien, don’t you think?” he teases.

“Oi, Dad was human as they come, and I’m London born and bred. Besides, I _do_ have another name.”

“…Well?”

“It’s secret, and before you start, no I _can’t_ just tell you.”

“Why _not_?”

“Names, true names, are powerful things and some people can take advantage of that. There are civilisations out there that use language the way Earth uses science. To guard against them, we bind our names away and only use them once in our lives.”

This sounds suspiciously like spiritual nonsense to Sherlock.

“What for?”

“Marriage, more or less. A soul-bond, if you can stomach that.”

As much as he wants to scoff, Sherlock decides that some day he will be given John’s name. It’s not because he believes in souls or any such thing, but because _John_ clearly believes it. He tries to summon a secret of his own that he could offer up in reciprocity, but hits a dead end. He has very few proper secrets, mostly because he generally refuses to feel guilty.

A loud beeping starts up, emitted from the mobile in John’s pocket.

“Ah! That’s a go! We’re rolling.”

He dashes off, and Sherlock catches up quickly, refusing to trail behind.

oO*Oo

They land and John brings up a screen that shows fields of tall grass waving under a violet sky.

“Matrolaxa,” John says. “Close to Earth-normal in terms of gravity and atmosphere. We’re about a hundred and fifty years into your future, but several hundred light years from Earth.”

The camera pans left and Sherlock stares as a police box slides onto the screen.

“John…”

“He hasn’t fixed the Chameleon Circuit. Over nine hundred years and he’s still gallivanting around in a _police box_.”

“That’s meant to be a disguise?” asks Sherlock scornfully.

“It was effective in the sixties. Less so in other situations.” He sighs. “Well, let’s go find ourselves a Doctor.”

oO*Oo

What they find after leaving the TARDIS ( _effectively_ concealed as a small hill) is a village of frightened and injured natives milling around in the rubble of their houses. John immediately falls into the doctor mindset and swiftly organises triage and treatment stations.

Sherlock believes that he’s dealt with the complete upheaval of his worldview rather well; he accepts that there is more to the universe that he’d thought, accepts the existence of aliens and technology indistinguishable from magic (not for long, he tells himself). Still, there’s something about seeing these four-armed humanoids that makes him go a little dizzy.

They appear to come in three colours, he notes to distract himself: red, yellow and blue, with a majority of yellow beings. Their responses to stimuli seem to mimic those of humans to a large extent – excellent news, as it means his deductions won’t be useless. Observing the interactions, he notices that there seems to be some tension between the different colours. And, given that they are the most numerous, he would expect to see a correspondingly high number of injured yellows when, in fact, they appear mostly unharmed. The attack was targeted, then. How senseless.

It’s at that point that the delegation mounted on four-foot tall feline variants arrives.

Interestingly, all twenty-one members are yellow. Furthermore, the leader shows signs of being _highly_ racist and, upon catching sight of Sherlock and John, explodes into a xenophobic rage.

John responds with righteous anger (it’s a good look on him, really) and Sherlock makes several scathing remarks.

It’s not exactly surprising, then, that they are arrested, summarily tried and thrown into prison.

oO*Oo

The guards are _very_ attentive, more than is warranted, really, from which Sherlock deduces a recent failure, likely an escaped prisoner. Unfortunately for them, their diligence is matched by their incompetence.

Sherlock distracts them with deductions (pleasingly accurate, despite the cultural divide) while John uses his sonic device to unlock the door. Caught by surprise, the guards are quickly neutralised, stripped of their communicators and confined to the vacated cell.

“I believe that the Lord Chancellor ordered the raids, out of his idiotic racial prejudice, aided by a co-conspirator with technological expertise. The village was looted, so greed was a partial motivator,” Sherlock says as they cautiously leave the prison building. “He’s planning something large-scale, and its execution is worrying him.”

John nods in understanding, and then freezes, going pale.

“They had missiles ready for launch,” he says, “he’s going to target the non-Diaman settlements.”

That makes sense, especially paired with the way he’d earlier encouraged the panicked villagers to go to their families; clearly an attempt to segregate the races in order to limit the damage to the yellow – Diaman – members of the population.

“You go to the throne room, see if you can manage to warn the leaders. I’ll try to prevent launch,” John orders briskly.

Sherlock nods.

“Do try to stay alive,” he drawls, “the cab fare home would be horrendous.”

John chuckles softly, and they part ways.

oO*Oo

Mission temporarily abandoned in favour of examining the (blue-skinned, purple-blooded) corpse sprawled on the ground by the doors, Sherlock only distantly registers the approach of a stranger ( _unlikely to be an enemy, as he’s clearly not native to this planet either – is quite possibly the escaped prisoner, actually_ ) behind him. There’s a device of some sort lying beside the victim (obviously dropped by the unfortunate guard) that may have been the cause of the severe burns on the upper pair of hands. Carefully, he exposes the back of his hand to the device, smiling in satisfaction when he feels the heat still radiating from it. He has about seventeen minutes to find and disable the bomb that’s sure to be hidden in the throne room.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” the stranger says, and Sherlock turns to look at him.

“It’s hot,” the man explains, rather needlessly.

The newcomer appears human, and younger than Sherlock, though dressed in clothing that Sherlock associates with octogenarians. His wide smile is innocent, but the presence behind his eyes is even weightier than what Sherlock’s seen in John’s.

Oh, how very convenient. Just who he needs.

“Yes. Come along, there’s a bomb in the throne room.”

Sherlock spins, pushes the doors open and sweeps in, smugly aware that the Doctor is following.

They clear the confused parliament members from the room with arrogance, bravado and sheer force of character. Sherlock is impressed by the other man, almost despite himself.

“It will be somewhere near the High Minister’s Chair,” he informs the Time Lord, knowing that the blue High Minister would be a irresistible target for the Chancellor, “and will have something between ten and fifteen minutes remaining.”

“I feel like I’m late to the party,” the Doctor comments bemusedly as he begins searching.

Sherlock finds the bomb stuck to the bottom of the High Minister’s Chair. How utterly unsubtle of the Lord Chancellor. The clock reads 12:35. 12:34. 12:33…

He thrusts the smooth silver case at his companion.

“Shouldn’t be too difficult; the chief technician thinks he’s far better than he is.”

Accordingly, it takes only a scan by a wand Sherlock identifies as sonic and then a few quick applications to freeze the numbers at 11:54.

What inept workmanship. Boring.

“Nothing like a spot of bomb disabling first thing in the morning,” says the Doctor cheerfully.

“Dull,” Sherlock says, turning away, “we need to find my partner.”

John should be quite all right, but madmen (and the Chancellor is certainly nearing a psychotic break) can be dangerous.

oO*Oo

After some searching (not at all aided by the fluttering Council members), they find John typing furiously at a console, a gun Sherlock doesn’t recognise lying on the counter beside him and two guards and the Chancellor unconscious and tied up on the floor.

“I’ll be done in a moment. The idiots didn’t even bother putting in an abort.”

A few more key strokes and he looks up.

“Done.” He might have gone on, but the Doctor speaks up then.

“Well done, very nice, but I’m afraid I didn’t catch your names. I’m the Doctor.”

Obviously.

“Sherlock Holmes.”

He sees a spark of eager recognition. Curious. Could it be that he gains enough fame to be remembered?

“Call me John.”

The Doctor meets John’s eyes, and goes white.

“Impossible,” the Doctor whispers through bloodless lips.

“Hello, great-grandfather.”


	9. Chapter 9

The older Time Lord staggers backwards, nearly falling into a technician’s chair, his eyes wide and fixed on John.

“Interesting. You recognised him immediately upon meeting his eyes, not as a family member, but as a fellow Time Lord. When he called you ‘great-grandfather’, it was another shock.”

“Sherlock,” says John, warningly.

“Oh, it’s not as if you were particularly sensitive either, John.”

“Granted, but there wasn’t much alternative.”

Before John can go to the seated man, the Doctor surges upright and seizes John’s face in two hands, bringing their foreheads together. Holding that position, they stare intently at one another for a few moments, and John had mentioned telepathic abilities…

With no warning, the Doctor crumples, collapsing onto John’s shoulder, his shoulders heaving in shuddering sobs. From his position, Sherlock can see that _his_ doctor is only slightly less affected.

Sherlock can see that this is a highly emotional moment, analogous to his own reunion with John. Frankly, though, this is boring. He manages to tolerate the spectacle for nearly thirty seconds before interrupting,

“Shall we be getting on with things?”

“Right,” the Doctor says, hauling himself erect and scrubbing a tweed sleeve across his eyes. “Unfinished business. This always happens, you know, I come to do a bit of sightseeing and then there’s a revolution. Or an invasion. Or a very confused Ga’arion lawyer…” he trails off in contemplation, but soon refocuses on John. “And sometimes, sometimes if I am very, very lucky, there’s a miracle.”

oO*Oo

In typical fashion, they manage to soothe the bewildered Council, ensure the arrest of the Chancellor and his conspirators and completely ruin the ensuing celebratory feast before the sun sets.

After making a hasty exit, the three men stand outside the incongruous police box ( _not even authentic_ , Sherlock notes with scorn) in the dimming mauve light.

The Doctor is grinning irrepressibly, his smile widening every time he looks at John. John, whose answering smile is nearly as bright. Sherlock wants to say something brilliant so that John will smile at him that way, but what is there to say?

_Your great-grandfather ate a banana this morning and hasn’t changed out of those clothes in at least three weeks._

_The grass here contains minimal chlorophyll and is probably not especially flammable._

_Three of the Council members were sleeping together, and the server who tripped has at least five siblings._

Boring.

“Tea!” the Doctor exclaims inanely, “You should come in and drink some tea!”

Clearly a ploy to keep John around, Sherlock thinks sourly, huffing a little. Wordlessly, John gives him an affectionate nudge of the elbow, as he’s done a hundred times before when he felt a sulk was imminent. As condescending as the gesture is, Sherlock can’t help a little thrill of triumph at John’s attention.

“Tea sounds lovely, but we should probably meet somewhere else,” John answers.

“Right, of course, lock onto my TARDIS and I’ll take us to the perfect place.”

“So you did fix the navigation, if not the chameleon circuit.”

“I like her like this,” the Doctor retorts, “police boxes are _cool_.”

“I I hardly think you can be considered an authority on ‘cool’,” Sherlock sniffs disdainfully, “Just look at your clothes.”

Adopting an affronted expression, the Doctor reaches to his throat to tweak the fabric there.

“Bowties are cool,” he insists.

“Bowties are _dull_.”

A weak parry, perhaps, but ultimately true.

“Right, so,” John interrupts hastily, “where are we meeting up?”

“It’s a surprise!”

“…Were you just going to set the controls to random?”

“…No.” But the Doctor is pouting a little, not bothering to hide the lie.

With a familiar long-suffering sigh, John shakes his head.

“We’ll follow you. Try to land somewhere quiet.”

“Oh! I know just the place! Haven’t been there in years!”

“Great, we’ll be right behind you.”

“Wonderful! I’ll just, go, yes…” The Doctor unlocks the doors, pushes them open (in direct disobedience of the sign) and darts in, sparing a last cheeky smile for John before the doors close again.

“It’s hard to believe that you two _aren’t_ related.”

Scoffing slightly (that man is overly sentimental, occasionally irrational, annoyingly distractible…nothing like him at all), Sherlock follows John to the hill that is actually a TARDIS. It’s a surreal experience, watching John open a door of grass and dirt to reveal the glowing interior of his TARDIS and then following him inside.

Stepping out onto the surface of a new world less than ten minutes later, Sherlock thinks that it’s a form of transport that he could certainly get used to. Much better than a taxicab, though the noise is somewhat irritating.

“Hello again!” the Doctor greets them eagerly, “Welcome to the Eye of Orion! Perfect place for a quiet cup of tea. Perfect place for a quiet anything, really.”

It certainly is quiet, with the calm stillness of a bucolic little bit of countryside where nothing ever happens. How hateful.

And yet, somehow, it’s not. Sherlock feels…serene here, free of the itching restlessness that’s driven him all his life. He wouldn’t be able to stay here for too long, but a few hours in this place don’t seem like such a trial.

“Ah, I thought you might appreciate it.”

The Doctor is looking at him understandingly. This man knows what it is to be driven by one’s own mind, Sherlock realises with a sudden pang of empathy, knows the pressing need to _move,_ and _discover_ . The Doctor has seen something of himself in Sherlock, he _understands_ him with none of Mycroft’s superiority or Moriarty’s insanity.

“Well, come along,” the Doctor says, his wise stillness hidden again, “help me move some chairs out here. And a table. We’ll have a tea party, with tea and biscuits and those lacy white doilies.”

John snorts, but follows him into the police box.

From his brief glimpse earlier, Sherlock knows that the Doctor’s TARDIS looks very different from John’s, and he takes the time now to properly look around; it’s all orange and green and glass and domes. There is a console here, too, but it is a chaotic mass of controls (Sherlock identifies a rotary telephone, several spigots and a typewriter, among other things, integrated into the wires and levers) as opposed to the neat rows of buttons on John’s.

“Oh,” gasps John behind him, “oh, she’s beautiful.”

“My sexy girl!” the Doctor croons, leaping to stoke the console in a worryingly intimate manner.

Ships, Sherlock knows, are traditionally female, but this is taking things a step further, as both Time Lords seem to accord the ships a degree of sentience. A symbiosis of sorts, then, between craft and pilot?

“…find a kitchen. I have three: one for everyday, one for Sundays, and one that I haven’t been able to find since Romana left…”

Chattering voluminously, the Doctor links his arm with John and pulls him through a maze of corridors. Sherlock follows, trying to convince himself that he doesn’t resent every smile, every laugh and every comment the man earns.

oO*Oo

While John makes the tea and the Doctor hovers, apparently sharing Sherlock’s views on tea-making (which is to say: let someone else do it), the two Time Lords, having met only two and a half hours ago, move in perfect synchronicity. John will deftly sidestep the other man without looking, or the Doctor will hand him a towel without being asked. At one point, the Doctor actually tosses a spoon at John’s back, which John catches almost absent-mindedly.

Sherlock sits in one of the mismatched chairs and observes them. _Telepathy_ , he forces himself to conclude, still unable to properly accept the idea.

The kitchen itself is an amalgam of styles; one wall is painted green, with large pastel yellow spots and white plastic cupboards, another is blue ceramic tiles boasting a long marble counter, stainless steel sinks and wooden shelving. A third is home to four ovens, two dishwashers, five refrigerators, three microwaves and eight other, as yet unidentifiable, pieces of machinery. The overall effect is one of overpowering eccentricity, verging on ugliness, to Sherlock’s discerning eyes.

“All right, kettle’s boiling. Let’s haul out,” John says, easily lifting a loaded tray and making for the door.

“Here,” the Doctor says and hands Sherlock three folding chairs that he pulled out of a tall cupboard. He himself hoists up a similarly folded table to balance it on his hip. Thus burdened, they head for the exit.

Sherlock’s contribution to the proceedings is to unfold one chair and sprawl artfully in it while the Doctor attempts to unfold the table. After much muttering and some sonic-ing, they have a cozy little set up and John places a steaming mug ( _pale blue, generally used for coffee, five years old)_ in Sherlock’s hands and sits with a sigh. Cradling a third mug, the Doctor perches on his chair.

“So, you’re Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes…in space.” The man’s face is eager and expectant, bearing a conspiratorial grin. “I must say, though,” he adds, flicking his eyes over Sherlock and pursing his lips, “you’ve certainly brought some…new ideas to the role.”

Sherlock frowns, trying to make sense of that, and then turns in surprise when John chokes his mouthful of tea.

John has gone pale as he stares at Sherlock. “Oh,” he says, “Oh God, you’re _Sherlock Holmes_ . And, oh. _Oh_ . It was my – _I_ wrote…Oh God.”

“I’m perfectly aware of my name, John. Also, if you wish to be understood, I suggest you attempt to speak in complete sentences. Something about your blog, I take it?”

“No,” the Doctor interrupts, eyes wide and incredulous, “no. No way. You’re _really_ …”

“I’m afraid so,” John says, wincing, “he’s the original.”

“Ohhhh. Oh, but that’s brilliant.” He circles Sherlock, examining him minutely. “And you!” he exclaims, rounding on John, “You’re Dr. John Watson. My great-grandson is Watson! Ha!”

“Oh God,” John says again and drops his head into his hands.

“I accrue some fame, then?”

“‘Some fame’? Ha! You’re remembered for centuries as one of the greatest detectives who ever lived!”

“How unexpected.”

“It…well, it becomes a bit like the Arthurian legends,” John puts in sheepishly, “it’s generally agreed that Sherlock Holmes existed, but nobody knows exactly when or where or what really happened. There are certain staples, of course: Moriarty, John Watson, Lestrade, even, but the rest is somewhat fluid.”

“And…people _like_ these stories?” Sherlock is astonished.

“If only they knew what an utter arse you can be,” John answers with a teasing grin.

oO*Oo

They’ve been drinking tea for nearly an hour now, the kettle continuing to produce cup after cup of hot water long after it should be empty (and cold). More impossible technology. It’s all been unexpectedly amiable; despite his _messiness_ , the Doctor is clever enough, and mad enough, to be good company and when suitably engaged, Sherlock is less inclined to be prickly.

The detective has even consented to consuming several of the biscuits – no great hardship, actually, as they’re quite nice (not that he’d let on).

The conversation hits a lull and John clears his throat awkwardly, drawing the attention of his two companions. Seeing his serious expression, Sherlock knows that they’re finally getting down to business. The socialisation had been surprisingly pleasant, but he’s starting to chafe at the peacefulness.

“Well, this has been lovely, but we didn’t track you down just to pay a social call,” John tells his ancestor, “Doctor, does the date April 22nd 2011 hold any special meaning for you?”

And just like that, in the space of a moment, the Doctor wears every second of his years on his face.

“The day I die,” he says with a bitter smile. “And it’s coming, no matter how far or fast I run. It’s coming and I can’t stop it.”

He looks at John and his tired resignation fades into anger, “And why? Why now when I’ve just found you?” He surges to his feet and paces.

“Every time I find something miraculous, something precious, the universe takes it away. Every. Single. Time.”

Turning back to where John is sitting, the Doctor fixes his great-grandson with a piercing stare.

“Well, not this time. This time, I refuse. I say NO!”


End file.
